nowhere else to go

Most exciting news of the day: Jen Lemen appears as guest blogger on Maggi Dawn's blog! As Amelia would say, it is "so, so good."

Today I am wondering if my Perfect Health routine isn't mellowing me to the point of not being able to generate anything. According to the book, one thing my mind-body type is susceptible to is "chronic dissatisfaction". I have a difficult time just being with my life, just being in it. I have a running commentary going about whether I am happy being home with Amelia (or not), if we should move (or where), on top of a low-level anxiety about missing it entirely (it being what I am really supposed to be doing with my life). Some of that noise is quieting down, but it has only been a couple days. We'll see if it lasts.

But then when the quiet sets in (or the calm), I get really suspicious. I wonder if it is like people contemplating retirement, "What will I do all day if I'm not working?" Except for me, I think, "What will I think about if I'm not neurotically over-analyzing my life? What will I do with myself if I'm not working my butt off for the church? What's next for me since Amelia feeds and dresses herself and obviously doesn't need me anymore?"

I think the attraction for me in the contemplative/sacramental realm is this implication from the incarnation that the ordinary can be sacred, that the sacred isn't some fleeting experience that I will chase like an errant butterfly all of my days. It is this sense that if I practice being present in my life--just as it is and just as it isn't--that I might find God there. That I might find my true self there, the one who's left when all the neurotic packaging is stripped away. And I just have to trust that promise right now, because I really have nowhere else to go.